So we in the Baltimore media made a bit of a deal of it last night -- not because the 69-win mark is impressive, it's not. But because it shows just how much better this team is than it was last year.

Does that mean anything to the Orioles' players?

"Not at this point," Orioles shortstop J.J. Hardy said. "I think we are all playing for something a little bit more. And right now I don't think it means much to us at all really. It's nice to win [69 games] but we definitely have a bigger picture in mind."

That's the right attitude, of course. Here are some thoughts about the 69th win.

Buck Showalter: "I don't think you're going to find anybody in that locker room who knows that unless you tell them. I think if someone had told us that was going to be the benchmark this year, they'd ask, 'Who says that?' Our guys, from Day 1 in spring training, have a loftier goal than having a better record than last year."

Matt Wieters: "We're not playing to try and beat last year. Last year was not the year we wanted to have this year. We wanted to have a chance for the postseason. We wanted to have a chance for the playoffs. So I think coming out of spring training we weren't worried about what happened last year. We were worried about this year."

Kevin Gregg: "We're a better team than we were last year. We're putting a lot of things together and playing good baseball as a team. Everybody in the clubhouse feels like we have a chance to win every time we step out there. That's huge. We've won a lot of games in a lot of different ways, and that's a good feeling when we go out there."

Adam Jones: "It's a product of playing good baseball and competitive baseball on a daily basis. We've got 36 games to go. Let's see our record after (those) 36 games."